Tag Archives: Interview With the Vampire

It’s recently come to my attention that I still know every single sound in the movie Interview with the Vampire by heart. It was on HBO the other night, presumably in anticipation of that Vampire Chronicles TV series I’ve heard minimal amounts of things about and so I watched it for the first time in ages with Finny, and Peregrine, when Finny got tired of me telling him when a noise I didn’t like was about to come on – like when Louis first dies and when that one prostitute is making that snapping noise at Lestat, and there’s more…there’s always more. I believe the main reason I know it by heart is that I used to listen to it when it was on Pay per View and I couldn’t see it (scrambled), but the sound was perfect. Apparently that’s not what other people were “watching” on scrambled Pay per View but that’s fine.

Anyway, vampires have been of interest to me for a long time, and my mom found Darkest Heart at a library sale and got it for me. It turns out it’s the last in the Sonja Blue series, and I read it first. It did make a little bit of a difference. I wasn’t entirely invested in the character as a vampire who also happened to be a “badass vampire hunter,” perhaps I’ve been tainted by Blade. But I did see a certain familiar conflict between vampiricism and humanity (“Oh, Louis, Louis, still WHINING, Louis!” – best part of the whole movie, unexpectedly) and the plot and action were fast paced (Sonja is not as mopey as Louis, even though I’ve always loved Louis, [named one of my own characters after him – a broody, angry poet werewolf] Sonja is like the Slayer to Louis’ Neutral Milk Hotel) and made it clear that there’s a toothsome quality to the series. I’ve since read more Sonja Blue books and enjoyed them, but I haven’t stumbled across the first one just yet.

“Yes, please, tell me more about all those noises I don’t even understand in this movie.” – Peregrine

Weak vampires who sound spindly and craggy (a particular passage about tights “bagging about” a vampire’s knees springs to mind) instead of strong, marble-skinned, and lithe are a nice change of pace. It seems that every so often the old monsters can have some fresh life breathed into them. Sort of. The vampires in this book are very far away from freshness of any kind. For me, that’s what made this fun to read. I can understand being weakened and underestimated based on natural issues alone (I can’t breathe most of the time) and I appreciated Nina’s take on the matter and her coping mechanisms. I can’t, however, imagine being stuck with the same whinging people for thirty years of support group discussions. It does not sound fun or like a reason to keep going eternally despite giving people support being the major general function of support groups (most of them probably don’t see the same people who can never change for the duration of thirty years though…and by most of them I mean all of them).

I do have one major qualm with these vampires though. They eat guinea pigs. I know that real humans eat guinea pigs and I have no issues with that and I happen to know my fair share about Ecuador and Peru and guinea pigs as little cows- but these are vampires. I would like them to perpetuate the long-standing tradition that vampires eat rats when they’re staying away from humans. Let’s think through the diet plans, vampires and writers of vampires. Rats breed quickly and produce sizeable litters. Guinea pigs do not. Rats are of unknown origin. Guinea pigs are from South America. Rats are available in the wild around the world. Guinea pigs are only available in the wild in a few chunks of South America. Louis from Interview ate rats, Angel ate rats, rats are the choice of vampires. Not guinea pigs. Rats are like the champagne of rodents.

What’s happening to this pillow will happen to anyone who tries to eat Danger Crumples. Don’t cross the guinea pigs.